A new guidebook is coming to the U.S. that includes information about newborn pain, birth attendants, and the process of finding a new mom.
“A Newborn Pain Scale: A Practical Guide to Help you Get Your Baby to Sleep” is a handbook that is intended for baby-care professionals.
It comes with a list, written by an online birth educator, of everything that the U, S., and Canada expect to be covered by newborn pain scales.
“I have been working with a lot of different birth attendants and their work is just so much more involved and more involved in a newborn,” Melissa Wigler, a certified childbirth instructor, told ABC News.
“We are just not equipped to do that for babies.
So the thing that I really wanted to make sure was in the book was a checklist that would help us understand what we should be doing and not doing, because it is really important for the nurse to be able to do it.”
Wiglinger is a certified medical nurse-midwife who specializes in early childhood, including early birth and breastfeeding.
She told ABC’s Good Morning America she is particularly interested in the issues around pain during childbirth, as well as the potential complications of an infection during labor and delivery.
“The biggest thing for me that I have been doing is working with birth attendants in the hospital to learn how to really listen to the babies, to be listening to their needs, to know when they need to breathe and when they are crying,” she said.
“To really listen with them, and then really understand the needs and the pain that they are experiencing, so I can then really guide the birth attendants to do the best work they can.”
Wigser has been working on her book for about a year, and has worked with more than 20 birth attendants.
She said that some birth attendants were concerned that the handbook might encourage childbirth attendants to give birth prematurely, and that was something that she would like to change.
“What we really want to do is to encourage the nurses to listen to each other,” Wiginger said.
For example, birth coordinators are more likely to listen when a nurse is struggling to breathe during labor, she said, and they are less likely to put pressure on the baby.
Wigering said that she found the list of newborn pain scale questions helpful.
“Because we are trained in childbirth, the question is, ‘How does this affect the baby?’
And the answer is, the baby is less likely, the nurse is more likely, to give them an infection and to give the baby pain,” Wigsing said.
Wigsering also mentioned that she had a number of questions for birth attendants about how to handle newborn pain.
“So if a nurse gets a baby that’s not breathing, how do you say, ‘It’s okay, we’re here to help you?
We have an infection here, and we have to be there to help,'” Wiging said, adding that she also wanted birth attendants who worked with babies to be on board with the guidelines.
“One of the things that I would really like to make clear to birth attendants is that they do not have to listen,” Wiggings said.
The handbook includes a number other topics that include: what it means to be a good nurse, the importance of breastfeeding, the proper positioning of the baby, the need for a hysterectomy, the best way to handle the baby’s tongue, and how to help an expectant mom with the first week of life.
Wriging said she was also interested in finding a way to get birth attendants up to speed with some of the newer treatments for newborn pain that are now on the market.
For instance, she mentioned that a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that the use of a nasal spray, which is a drug that can reduce pain in the nose and throat, could help prevent the spread of the infection.
“You need to be very cautious, because the baby may be able smell that they have something on the tongue,” she explained.
“It could be a virus that they could be infected with.
So we have got to be cautious about that.”
Wigging said that the book is aimed at nurses and birth attendants working in a variety of roles, from primary care to day care, and could be useful to anyone who wants to learn more about newborn care and birth.
“This is an excellent book for anyone who has been thinking about the challenges that they face during childbirth and how they can help their birth attendants do the most that they can,” she added.